We Are A Family

I really missed my family.


I miss all of my family most of the time. Not Pat and Rachel, of course; after all I live with them. I miss my parents, though. Brothers, sister, neices, nephew... I miss the family of friends that I have around this country and in other countries. I love them. During my adult life I haven't always been the best at staying in touch - it doesn't diminish the love I have for them; I'm just bad at staying in touch. I did resolve, though, to stay in better contact with them; and I believe that I am succeeding - even on the smallest level.
These friends, though, I can be in touch with whenever I like. They are there for me when I need them; there for me when I need the comfort of someone I love, the companionship of someone I enjoy - and they never, ever, make me work for their friendship. SuWEET. Rieeght?

A few years ago the gay community and the world fell in love. Not everyone in either group was in love and those who were may have been split. Some loved the girls, some loved the boys, some loved both. It could not be denied, though: the television shows SEX AND THE CITY and QUEER AS FOLK had changed, not only tv, not only the the history of tv, not only pop culture, but (indeed) the world. They were a phenomenon. They were not the first tv shows to bring people together, oh no. I remember being in college and that the boyz would often have DYNASTY parties, gathering to watch the show and cheer the bitchiness. There have, long, been GOLDEN GIRLS and DESIGNING WOMEN groups; when the shows were being first run, people would gather to watch and howl - when they were being re run, people would gather to say their favourite lines with their favourite women. These groups and gatherings, parties and people have been a part of societal behaviour for awhile and they aren't going anywhere, any time soon.

Every group of girls and every group of GURLS talked about the boyz and the girls and which one are YOU? But then, that happened with GOLDEN GIRLS and DESIGNING WOMEN, too. There are online quizzes, magazine tests and cocktail conversation in which people played the game: the boyz all wanted to be Blanche, Suzanne, Samantha or Brian and the girls all wanted to be Carrie. Let's admit it - the females of the species were never as interested in GOLDEN GIRLS, DESIGNING WOMEN or QUEER AS FOLK as the males. BUT they were indelibly bonded by SEX AND THE CITY. Even my sixty plus year old mother tuned in to see the new episodes of the girls. She called them that, too: the girls. These four women became everyone's best friends and favourite companions. They represented something - a unity, a beacon of hope, a little solidarity.

I had very close relationships to both of these tv shows - it's so easy, after all. Like I said, they never made me work and they were always there. For one show it was half an hour, for the other it was forty five minutes. I tuned in, saw my friends, turned off the set and got back to the reality of my life. It can still be that way any time I like because I own the box sets of both series. The only problem is that the begin to set the bar for your life. It became a problem then and it is an even bigger problem now.

The thing about SEX AND THE CITY is (at least for me) that it is set in MY city. I would watch the show and see these women living these amazing (even with all the problems and speed bumps) lives and doing these exciting things, all of which were offset by the scenery of New York City. I wanted to live like that and so did every other gay man and woman under sixty in NYC. Not all of us are as affluent, though, as those girls. These characters are extremely successful. Few of my friends have mastered that success. Most of us are still struggling and even those of us who don't struggle financially have other woes. Sure, I recognize it is just a tv show - but don't we all watch our stories or the picture shows we go to and dream of having lives like that? I mean, what reasonable girl or boy doesn't want to be as physically fit as Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattral? What girl or boy doesn't want to wear the clothing as stylish as these women? More to the (very important) point: what girl or boy doesn't want to have a group of friends so close that they are actually in each others' lives?

The girls from SEX AND THE CITY had breakfast every day in the same restaurant. It was such a religious ritual that in the final moments of the series Carrie Bradshaw knew exactly what time and where she could find her girls and she surprised them by showing up, all the way from Paris, to let them know she was home. The gang from QUEER AS FOLK had almost all of their meals at the Liberty Diner. Any time of day you would see one, two or all nine of them having breakfast, lunch, dinner, late night dinner, midnight snack, four am breakfast. The people in these shows have keys to each others' homes, they call on each other in the middle of the night when there is an emergency, they know the details...they WITNESS each others' lives. That's what I miss.

I feel that void, almost daily.

I recently began a marathon of QUEER AS FOLK. I do this a couple of times a year. I get out my dvds and, while doing my housework or the monotonous paper work and old photography work (filing negatives seems to be a lifelong chore for me that will never end), I watch an episode or two. It's always like old home week. I know they are just characters in a tv show - but they are my friends and I love them. Also, they are a lot like friends I have had and do have. After all, stereotypes exist for a reason (I intend to get into the finer points of QUEER AS FOLK in a more detailed story in the future...). There are people in my life who remind me of Melanie Marcus, Ted Schmidt, Emmett Honeycut...and vice versa. There are slivers and bits of the other characters that smack (badly!) of qualities in some of my closest family of friends. I watch the show and it is like being with my family; my living family, not the characters in the show! And I am reminded of happier times...

There were a couple of years, there; there were some summers when life seemed to imitate art, rather than the more usual pattern in which art followed life's lead. I talked on the phone with AJ almost every day. Jennifer and I were in each other's world constantly because she was styling my shoots and I was baking PMS Kookies. Tim was living in the guest room and Tom was sleeping over. Mark, across the street, and I were still friends; the other Mark lived on the corner. Natasha lived down the street and Heather lived right next door. Every Saturday night we were all out dancing, on Sundays we met here for Patcakes and breakfast drinks like tea, coffee, juice or even mimosas. There were game nights, birthday kidnappings, rooftop parties and spontaneous hanging out in the afternoons. There was Sunday brunches at Rennaisance diner followed by a gang of gay men hanging out in our living room watching The Queens of Comedy and reciting, along with Mo'Nique "Skinny women are EVIL and they NEED to be DESTROYED!!!!"

I know that people grow up and grow old. I don't see why they have to, though. Grow old. We grow up. Sure. My build our own families. Yes. Does that mean that we should dismiss the families we already have?

I noticed, a decade or more in the past, that my parents didn't have very many friends. I remembered being a kid in Portugal (ages 10 through 14) and how many parties my folks threw. They invited friends from the Embassies, the Marine House, other dignitaries and businessmen and their wives to our big house in Portugal on sunny Saturday afternoons to drink sangria and eat sardines and to lay by the pool, use the sauna and swim. In Switzerland (I was 15 through 18) the crowd had aged a little, so the parties were cocktails and snacks and racous games of charades. My parents were party givers and, frankly, so were my sister and I. We threw parties for the kids at school where there was dancing and laughter and people wore outfits instead of showing up in jeans and t shirts. It was a gas, gas, gas, kids.

In the early 80s, all of the Moshers returned to America to start life over and, while the children went to college and attempted to make friends and make lives, the elder Moshers became a couple ... a couple with grown children. Then they became a couple with grandchildren. And though they had a few friends, they didn't seem to see them. Mom and Dad became each other's company. And I thought to myself "my parents have no friends... especially my mommy." It was years before I was old enough to realize that, when you get older, your family becomes your friends. My parents made their children (and, then, their grandchildren) their lives, their friends, their main focus. My dad had (and has) some buds with whom he golfs on the weekends. My mom had (and has) some ladies with whom she crafts one night a week and during the holidays. At the end of the day, though, they are each other's best friends and their children and grandchildren are their (I'll say it again) focus.

I think that's beautiful. I realize the importance of that even more, now, because Pat and I have grown closer and closer over these last few years until we have become the couple we always should have been (but were working toward being): we are a perfect match, absolutely devoted to each other. We always enjoy each other's company and we always have fun.

There is a wistful nostalgia, though...

We miss our friends.

They've all gone off to do their own thing. Many of them have married, had children; many have moved to other places. Some have moved on, spiritually, and decided that they don't really want to be friends with us; and some, we have had to remove from our lives, if only to self protect from negative energy. The rest are still there... maybe not every day... maybe not directly underneath the surface but more side by side. They are still with us.

I awoke one night this week, two am, thinking of Jennifer. I remembered a time when she lived some ten blocks away and we would hang out in her room and gossip and, sometimes, complain and cry. I remembered all the times in the kitchen baking cookies... when we were all so broke. I got her to hire that horrible drug addict I was dating and he didn't last a week in the kitchen. She cried on my shoulder about her frigid boyfriend. These thoughts led to one of those movie montages in your mind, where you see all of the people you have loved and all of the good and bad times... and you want to cry because the past gets further past, every day, and you know you can never get it back. The best you can do is try to rebuild something similar, for the family you still have, and may get back, once more.

So now I call my loved ones (and people who read me know I hate telephones) in an attempt to bridge the gap. I phone my parents more often, my brother, my sister (shocked, was she, when this trend started). I phone Marci every other day, Annalisa, Tom, Jen, Laurelle, regularly, just to say "I'm checking in!" I call or email Michael, The Harper Hallings, Happy and Brad, to just see what's new. I invite Tim or Mitchell or Jarrod to hang out when I have the time. And I will go out into the fucking early morning cold on Saturdays to walk the dog with AJ. I do these things because it is the right and important thing to do.

That is the great lesson I learned (or, more precisely, was reminded of) by my QUEER AS FOLK marathon and by my recent visits into SEX AND THE CITY land. Oh, yeah. The movie is coming out and I already acquired the movie posters for myself and for Kristen; I gave Pat the box set for Christmas - the girls are at my fingertips. Why, just this week I did a little refresher of some of my favourite episodes: I watched Carrie fall on the runway, I laughed when Samantha threw the pan of water on the trannies, I blushed for Miranda when she flashed the gay guy across the street and I cheered for Charlotte when she got out of bed and made herself look like Elizabeth Taylor in BUTTERFIELD 8 so she could attend Brady's birthday party. I haven't gotten around to watching my favourite, "I'M BOZO THE BUSH!" but I have watched the rooftop party over and over and danced around to Amber singing ABOVE THE CLOUDS. I have also watched, repeatedly, the series finale... just those last eight minutes, though, when Carrie returns to New York, when Samantha tells Smith "You have meant more to me than any man I have ever known", when Charlotte sees her baby for the first time and when Magda kisses Miranda on the forehead. I have listened, intently, to the voiceover while Carrie wraps up the journey for the audience and opens the door to the future for the ficitional characters that become our family. When the movie SEX AND THE CITY opens, I will be ready, having done another marathon. That marathon is then. The one these days is QUEER AS FOLK.

Each day, I watch a little bit of the Liberty Avenue gang... My hero, Brian Kinney, (and his creator, Gale Harold, doing some of the most under rater, subliminally perfect, contained and honest acting I have ever seen) and his wonderful family (I love the lesbians more and more with every viewing) are my almost constant companions these days. My own family of friends is busy - each and every one of them - so my fictional family will stand in for them until we can all be together again.

Family is everywhere, kids. We have only to reach out and touch the people who are in those families. In person, on the phone, by email, via snail mail.

Or with the simple touch of the PLAY button...